What’s the Deal in Texas?

Texas executed 62 [edit: 62% of all people executed in the US, a total of 26 people] people last year, when no other state executed more than 3, says the New York Times.  There is something very wrong with that.

Why does Texas like to kill people?  Is it something in the water, or perhaps it’s the culture of tough-guy justice?  Sure, “he needed killin'” is a defense in Texas, and nowhere else, but the disparity in the numbers is just way too big to explain.


While Texas has been forging ahead with capital punishment, many other states have been moving away from it. New Jersey abolished the death penalty this month, and other states have been considering doing the same thing. Illinois made headlines a few years ago when its governor, troubled about the number of innocent people who had been sent to death row, put in place a moratorium on executions.

Does this concern anyone in the Texas legislature?  What about the voting public?


There has been a tidal wave of DNA exonerations, in which it has been scientifically proved that the wrong people had been sentenced to death. There is also increasing awareness that even methods of execution considered relatively humane impose considerable suffering on the condemned

Does this give anyone in Texas pause to consider whether putting 62 people to death is a great idea?

The New York Times thinks that Texas is long overdue for a debate.  But what do the people of Texas think?  For one thing, I bet they couldn’t care less what the editorial board of the New York Times thinks.  Maybe they even prefer to go the opposite direction of what the Times has to say, just out of spite.  I can’t see a bunch of folk in Dallas quivering because the New York Times thinks ill of them.

But none of this explains why Texas, as opposed to everywhere else in the United States, puts so many people to death.  Are Texans that different from the rest of us?  Does life mean so little down there?  Or are you that harsh and unforgiving?  And the biggest question, are you proud of yourselves for it?

Hey, all you Texas boys and girls, enlighten this northeast Yankee.  Y’all sound kinda wacky.

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3 thoughts on “What’s the Deal in Texas?”

  1. Matlock

    First of all, I do not believe Texas executed 62 people last year. We account for 62 percent of those executed. Texas executed 26 when no other state executed more than 3. At least according to the bastion of all that is right and accurately reported, the New York Times.

    I would venture a guess that it is a cultural thing for us. We don’t take a lot of crap from people, especially smart-mouth Yankee lawyers. So be careful.

    Although of all the people in the great state of Texas, those in Dallas would indeed be the ones most likely to be concerned with what the NYT has to say about them. Dallas isn’t really Texas.

  2. SHG

    You are correct about the 62%.  In my rush to condemn Texas, I misread it.  Thanks for straightening out this smart-mouth Yankee lawyer.

    So you kill people in Texas because “you don’t take a lot of crap from people?”  Wouldn’t it be enough to just smack them around a little and make them dress in drag?

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